Wednesday, December 4, 2013

I don’t think I’ve ever been involved in a holiday cookies
swap (apparently you need to have like-minded friends), but if I were, I’d
bring these chocolate snowcap cookies. They just look so wintry, with their
powdery-white tops, contrasted against those deep, dark cracks.

They’re so captivating, that I find myself daydreaming about
tiny Christmas elves skiing down them when no one is looking. I really should
see someone about that. Anyway, the point is, if you’re looking for a holiday
cookie so seasonally appropriate it hurts, this is the one for you.

As I stated in the video, the only way to mess these up is
to not use enough powdered sugar. The first batch I made looked like they had
plenty, but that little bit I shook off before placing them on the pan made all
the difference. You want to coat them, roll them, coat them again, and then,
coat them again. You can’t put too much on.

Also, the batch I made after letting the dough sit overnight
didn’t spread out as much, which I thought looked better, and much more mini
mountain-like. As far as baking time goes, mine took about 12 minutes, but that
depends on exactly how large you roll your dough balls.

To be safe, you should probably do five or six practice
batches to get this time dialed in [wink]. Once you do, you’ll be rewarded with
a classic Christmas cookie that tastes as good as it looks. I think I speak for
tiny, imaginary elves everywhere, when I say we hope you give these a try soon.
Enjoy!

61 comments:

Oo I am excited to try these soon!I also wanted to stop by and say I am a huge fan! I am a very inexperienced cook, and found your site via allrecipies.com a couple of weeks before thanksgiving. I poured over the recipies and my husband and I hosted this year- it was a complete success! Not to mention the delicious breakfast items I have been making your site too! The hollendaise, pie crusts, hot chocolate stones mashed potatoes, I could go on and on! The videos are sooo helpful- I make hardly any mistakes compared to my previous recipe-following blunders! And so entertaining too! So thank you for all that you do, Chef John! Happy Holidays to you and your family!

This is off topic, but I wanted to tell you I just made your crème fraîche. It is heavenly. I am so grateful for all your hard work. I have also made your cured lemons and I always think of you when someone says how good the dish is that has your lemons, what is in this? I say Chef John's lemons.

I know you always say to use high quality cocoa, but the only thing I have in my house is from Hershey's. Would that be anywhere near what you call quality? I know its not european and stuff so I'm not sure.

Anywho's I gots' to tells' ya' dat' I shor' won'ts be a baking these dainty, powdered sugar cookies for fear of the distinct possibility of having to forfeit my man-hood card. And dat' surely wouldn't set well wit' my finicky lady-friend I'll has ya' know.

On another note I did howevers' done made me a boatload of Short-Cut lefty-over Turkey Enchiladas jest' the other day and 'dem fellers' were good!

Hi Chef John. I noticed in a video from Sept. of 2012 that you are using Better Homes & Gardens stainless steel cookware. A couple of other video chefs also received this product. How do you like it? How does it cook for you, etc? I have this cookware and I like it very much. Answer if you have a chance, thanks.

Hi John :) I think our family will travel this Christmas . Do you know if these choco snowcap cookies store well? Or rather , how can i take them along without ruining them? I have recently started following your blog.. Let me just say that u r a great teacher .. If u taught a class when i was studying Im sure id never skip a single one of ure classes :)

I just wanted to say I did my first cookie exchange last year and brought your wife's (Michele.....just like me) and my friends are still raving how great they were. So your snow topped might be good but Michele's chocolate cookies stole the show!

The first batch i made i over mixed the dough and it became a batter. I left it in the fridge overnight and while it did firm up, it melt right down the first 2 minutes in the oven. The second batch i made i watch my mixing and it came out so perfect.

Soooo delicious! Great idea to refrigerate dough and load with sugar.. They look beautiful and snowy white! Also a great cookie for chocolate lovers like me! I am giving them as gifts in the morning! (Packaged very carefully :)

Yesterday I made this recipe and the flavour toourned out great, they tasted amazing, however the confectionary sugar didn't stay as shown in your picture. It was all absorbed by the cookies while cooking in the oven.

I also made these without a mixer, but it was the powdered sugar part that got messy for me. These came out really well. I'm almost tempted to cancel at the cookie exchange and just keep them for myself.

Oh horror! Bringing a batch of these cookies (which have now become my grandchildren's favorite) on a flight to Portland tomorrow, when I realized that instead of rolling the dough in powdered sugar, I had rolled it in OO flour! Snatched them out of the oven and sifted powdered sugar all over. I just tested one and they are delicious but using OO flour does not help the powdered sugar adhere! Still a fine recipe.

this is a beautiful recipe! The people I made these for inhaled them. They were just that good. So good in fact that I made a "cobblestone" version for my mom for Valentine's day covered in powdered sugar/ cocoa powder and she was enamored. Thanks so much for the crowd pleaser!

Chef John, unless you have already addressed this in another blog post can you please clarify the difference between baking bars and regular chocolate bars? It confuses me because some brands making bars are inpalatable and some baking bars taste very similar their non-bake counterparts. Should you only use baking bars when baking, or does chocolate follow the rule of wine where you should only cook with something you would try alone? What is it on the ingredients list of baking chocolate that makes it best suited to be bakeable? Thank you.